Nights Past
by mjolk
Summary: Collection of IchiRuki drabbles
1. Nights Past

_(Post series IchiRuki drabble)_

There were nights where he would be deep asleep, tired from studying for next day's exams, and the next moment, he would be frowning up at her before moving aside to let her lay next to him, warm beneath his blanket. At some of his more lucid moments he would murmur sleepily to her, are you hurt? Even with a broken wrist once, she would answer, no, and would take care to put her injured hand at the side farthest from him, letting it dangle down the edge of his small bed.

There were nights where she wondered, would this ever end? She imagined a nice future for him: finishing medical school, working at his father's clinic and eventually inheriting it, marrying an Orihime-like sweet nice girl, living a normal life. She knew it was too late now, after what they had gone through, after he had gone to Soul Society to save her, after he actually became an official shinigami. She knew all this, but she had a small hope in her heart that there would be a way to end it and give him the future she imagined for him.

There were nights where he seemed to know. He would turn to her and stare at her for long moments until she asked him what was wrong. He would tell her words she had been hearing for a long time and chose to ignore or to believe. He knew all this, but he had a stubborn thought that one day she would stop ignoring it.

Nights in Soul Society were always cool and fresh, curiously still without a breeze. She would be alone.


	2. Playlist: Rukia

_(Originally an FST ficlet - playlist and tracks not included!)_

* * *

Rukia stared at the thin little white box that was lying on Ichigo's desk. A mobile phone? she thought. She picked it up and held it at arm's length in front of her. It didn't look like it was turned on. She shook it a bit. 

Still not on.

She pressed the round button in the middle of the white circle.

Still not on.

She tried pressing every point in the white circle.

Still not on.

She scowled at it. By now she was losing her patience. She shook it again, harder this time.

Still not on.

Finally she threw the thing back on the desk and continued to draw deformed bunnies in her (his) Chemistry notebook.

* * *

"What is that," she asked later, ensconced in her closet, legs safely warm under the blankets. The door of the closet was still open and she could see Ichigo sitting cross-legged on his bed, fiddling with the mysterious white box. 

"It's an iPod," he answered without looking at her.

"Ai-pou-dou? Is it that English language?"

He shot her a look now. "It plays music, okay? Come here and I'll show you."

She stared at him. The box in his hand was making clicking sounds as he moved his finger around its surface.

She pushed the blankets aside and padded across the room in barefeet. She sat next to him at the edge of the bed. "Show me."

He reached behind to take out a long white string with two black bulbs at the end and jabbed the other end, the pointy one, on top of the white box. He offered one of the black bulbs to her.

She stared at it like it was a Hollow that she didn't know how to kill.

A corner of his mouth moved and he moved his hand towards her right ear, fitting the contraption in her ear. "It's an earphone, alright? It goes to your ear so you can hear the music." He reached for the other earphone and put it in his own ear.

He hit a button on the box and loud, crashing noises screamed in her ear.

She hastily took the earphone out and pushed it back to him.

He raised his eyebrows. "Don't you have music in Soul Society?"

She stood up, ignoring his question, and walked back to her closet. "It sounded like Kon throwing a tantrum."

He snorted. "You have no sense of music, Rukia."

She climbed into her (his) closet and slid her legs neatly back inside the blankets. The last thing she saw before shutting the door close was Ichigo lying on his back, both earphones in his ears, eyes closed, one foot tapping against the air.

* * *

She was studiously writing on the low table when he came into the room. Her legs were neatly tucked under her, her back completely straight even as she bent down her head to write. 

He plopped down at the other side of the table, cross-legged, and shoved the white musicbox in front of her.

She glanced at it without moving her head, the merest flicker of eyes. "No, thank you."

"I got you some songs you might like."

She raised her head now to give him a stare. She looked down back at the music box. "It says "Rukia" on the screen."

"Yeah, I made a playlist for you. Just press this button here and it will play."

She hesitated, but took the music box from him. "Thank you."

He shrugged, eyes averted. "Just don't drop it."

* * *

At night, in her closet, when she couldn't sleep and thought of pointless thoughts, she reached for it, saw her name brightly lit, and hit play. 


	3. The State of InBetween

**The State of In-Between**

He was once made a talk at school where this distinguished psychologist came. "Juvenile deliquency and violence." He tuned out most of the psychobabble, but he remembered one thing vividly, a slide projected on the large screen. It had a thin line running across it in the middle. Above it: "euphoria". Below it: "depression". The doctor talked on and on, which side are you on? Which side would you rather be? How do you get where you want to be?

He likes walking down the quiet roads of Karakura. They are so empty he could walk right in the center. It is a line he toes carefully, self-consciously. When a cyclist or a car comes from the opposite direction, he would step aside. Left side: "euphoria". Right side: "depression".

When he is with her, he sees the line so clearly like it was projected and magnified a few times unto the space between them. Her side: "euphoria". His side: "depression". Or is it the other way around, her side: "depression", his side: "euphoria"? Which side does he want to be? He is not sure. Sometimes he finds himself almost at the line, almost crossing over.

She looks at him from the other side, always expressionless, never offering.


	4. Ghost in a Shell

GHOST IN A SHELL

a Rukia-centric drabble

x

x

x

x

When she was bored in the classroom, she liked to stare at her own hands. They looked like her hands, but they were not hers. There was a kind of stiffness in them when she wriggled her fingers, like the air was around them was heavier it took more effort to move through the air.

She tried to lift her little finger and saw it immobile: somehow she had failed.

x

x

She stole medical journals from the clinic downstairs. Huddled in the closet, she stared at illustrations of the most minute part of the human body, tracing the outlines and the colored lines and whispering their foreign-sounding names to herself.

She knew too little of the human body, too little of her own body. She had little control over herself (it's strange: she used to only think of her self as herself before) and she was afraid.

x

x

During recess, she stood by the classroom window and watched the male students playing soccer below. She touched her sun-warmed arm, wondering whether she was real within.

x

x

A long time ago, when she was still child-like, she would huddle with her friends at some deserted alley, waiting for morning to come. It was a wonder to her, feeling a curious sense of warmth within her, even when she knew their soul-bodies could not possibly emit heat. She snuggled closer to Renji beside her, feeling the warmth intensified. He turned his head towards her, scoffing, but he kept her close.

x

x

Many times she would join Ichigo and his friends to have lunch at the roof or at the school grounds. She would catch him staring off into space while sitting on the ground, leaning against a tree or a wall, while conversations continued around him. He looked content, relaxed, completely without worry. He looked like he belonged.

If she closed her eyes and thought of him, that image of his would be how she liked to remember him with. That would be how she would wonder about him, about how warm he would feel underneath her hand, underneath her cheek, within the circles of her arms.


End file.
